Hi, my name is Katie Dallas, I'm 15 years old and going into my sophomore year. I am from Spokane, Washington and have lived there for my whole life. Ever since I can remember I have loved science, but it really blossomed when I was about 5 years old and fell in love with rocks and fossils.
My interests in science have progressed through the years from geology, to paleontology, to marine biology, to my current interest in genetics. I love all different types of sciences and this has led me to a lot of indecision with what path I hope to pursue in my future. I’m hoping this camp can help me create a more concrete idea of what I want to do in the future.
I have a huge passion for traveling, so every summer I try to travel to a new place and join a camp to further my knowledge. My hobbies include playing volleyball, soccer, and piano. However, in most of my free time, I love to curl up with a good book, music, and some coffee. I look forward to meeting you all very soon!
Research Paper: DNA Data Storage
The Problem:
Nowadays, much of the information we search for can be found on the internet. Every day, large amounts of digital data are stored on the internet for everyone around the world to access and use. In fact, at the 2010 Techonomy conference in California, the CEO of Google announced that “Every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003. That’s something like five exabytes of data” The amount of data we produce everyday has only increased since 2010 and has led to a shortage storage space for all the data created.
The Solution:
However, scientists have recently figured out a solution to our storage problem, DNA Data Storage. Researchers from Microsoft and the University of Washington in Seattle figured out how to store information inside strands of synthetic DNA and called this method DNA Data Storage. The goals of being able to store information in strands of DNA is that it would reduce the amount of room data storage takes, how frequently the data has to be transferred, and the price of data storage. Currently, digital data is stored on disks or magnetic tape in a cartridge, which are about three inches by a half an inch. A single one of these cartridges contains around a half a mile of tape and are able to hold the equivalent of 46 million 200 page books. The lifespan of a magnetic cartridge is only about 10 to 15 years normally and 30 years in ideal conditions. The biggest factor that affects the cartridge’s life-span is how quick technology is advancing. This means the data has to be copied frequently with the rise and fall of certain technology, to ensure that the data can be read over a long period of time. DNA Data Storage is the easy solution to all these problems. If all the information on the internet today was translated into DNA it could fit into the size of a shoebox that could be stored for thousands of years as long as it’s just kept dry and cold. Storing information inside DNA is also highly unlikely to be rapidly outdated, unlike our current storage methods that have to be constantly transferred to keep up with progressing technology. Since, DNA would allow internet storage to be more efficient, the price of storing internet data would decrease immensely.
How It Works:
Now that it’s unmistakable that DNA is the clear solution we’ve been looking for to the problem of data storage shortage, here’s a basic explanation on how it works. First, the bases of DNA are converted into a binary code equivalent, for example, the bases C and G together equal a one in binary code or A and T together equal a zero. Once a specific piece of information is chosen from the internet, it’s binary code is translated into DNA bases’ and organized accordingly. Then, the organized bases can be synthesized which will link all of them together and form strands of DNA. To extract the data out of the DNA you would have to simply sequence the DNA strands and convert the DNA sequence back into its binary equivalent.
Photo Above: A Diagram of a full process of DNA Data Storage.
Issues:
As with any new field of science, many issues and limitations have presented themselves with DNA Data Storage. The main problems researchers are currently faced with when dealing with DNA Data Storage are cost, retrieval speed, and error rate. Right now, encoding data in DNA is estimated to cost around $12,400 per megabyte, also on top of that it costs around $220 per megabyte to reread it. However, as new technology becomes attainable in the next decade, the price of DNA synthesis is supposed to fall steeply and actually cost less than archiving data on magnetic tapes. Until the price falls to less than magnetic tapes DNA data storage will most likely be used as a long-term archive for data that is not accessed often. Another issue is the extreme difference between the retrieval times of data stored in magnetic tape cartridges versus when it’s in DNA. With the current magnetic tape cartridges, it takes less than a second to store or recover digital information, whereas it can take 2 to 3 days to encode data in DNA. Despite the large time gap between the two, many scientists would argue that DNA Data Storage is worth it because the data in the DNA will be available for many decades as long as it’s just kept cold and dry. Finally, the biggest obstacle of data storage in DNA is its high error rate. George Church determined that during the synthesizing portion of DNA information storage, that for every 500 correct bases placed one wrong base was also placed. When trying to encode large quantities of information in DNA this could become very problematic and make it extremely difficult to sequence and reread the data earlier encoded. In the past year to current day, Ewan Birney is working on reducing and correcting the possibility of error by taking the nucleotides of the previous and next DNA strands and overlapping them so that all data would be recorded four times. This would eliminate a large amount of room for error because the possibility that all four versions of the data would have the same error in the same exact place is very small.
Recent and Future Advancements:
Many individuals in the scientific field have already realized the potential of data storage like, Agilent Technologies in California. They just completed a full cycle of DNA storage by synthesizing, storing, sequencing, and then reconstructing the files put into the DNA. They helped prove to the world that storing information in DNA is a viable option for data storage in the future. Also, George Church, a genetics professor at Harvard, is currently trying to develop a way to directly encode video and audio signals into DNA. Church states that if he is successful he will most likely be able to completely replace flash, the current memory technology in portable electronics, and develop entire hardware systems that work with DNA. Ewan Birney and his colleagues from the European Bioinformatics Institute also have big plans for the future; they hope to find a way to completely replace data storage methods like magnetic tape cartridges. Finally, Sri Kosuri, a bioengineer at Harvard, said that biological storage in DNA could allow us to record anything and everything without reservation. In theory, with this new technology, we could blanket every square meter of Earth with cameras, and record every moment, everywhere.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, I believe that DNA Data Storage is a great solution to the problem of the lack of room to store internet data. Not only will DNA Data Storage solve the problem of the lack of room, but it will also save money, reduce the amount of room it takes to store the data, and increase the amount of time that the data doesn’t have to be transferred. Data storage in DNA is a very promising and if we give this method of storage a chance, I know it can change all our lives for the better.
My interests in science have progressed through the years from geology, to paleontology, to marine biology, to my current interest in genetics. I love all different types of sciences and this has led me to a lot of indecision with what path I hope to pursue in my future. I’m hoping this camp can help me create a more concrete idea of what I want to do in the future.
I have a huge passion for traveling, so every summer I try to travel to a new place and join a camp to further my knowledge. My hobbies include playing volleyball, soccer, and piano. However, in most of my free time, I love to curl up with a good book, music, and some coffee. I look forward to meeting you all very soon!
Research Paper: DNA Data Storage
Photo Above: A Diagram of a full process of DNA Data Storage.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/science/data-storage-on-dna-can-keep-it-safe-for-centuries.html?_r=2
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v494/n7435/extref/nature11875-s1.pdf
http://enfermagemestetica.com.br/wp-content/uploads/dna.rx_.jpg
https://techcrunch.com/2010/08/04/schmidt-data/
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v494/n7435/full/nature11875.html#ref8
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/32494/title/DNA-Data-Storage/
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/34109/title/DNA-based-Data-Storage-Here-to-Stay/
http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Dna_synthesis
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/134672-harvard-cracks-dna-storage-crams-700-terabytes-of-data-into-a-single-gram
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/510246/why-dna-will-someday-replace-the-hard-drive/
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/scientists-work-storing-digital-information-dna-40824753
http://www.northeastern.edu/levelblog/2016/05/18/storing-data-dna/
http://mashable.com/2016/07/07/dna-data-storage-200mb/?utm_cid=hp-hh-pri#PMWP6FdqPOqz
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/07/12/microsoft_stores_200_mb_of_data_in_a_strand_of_synthetic_dna.html
http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/coding-decoding-dna-storage.jpg
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